I came up with Maki's father's name from a custom map for CSS. If anyone's ever heard of something like makos_ then you'll know where I got the name from. It's also close to Maki so it works out. Maybe I should call Maki's mother Maku to continue the pattern…


June 2

"Hello, is anyone there? Bunker City 37A, if anyone is still alive please respond now"

"Hello, this is Mako Nishikino speaking, who is this?"

"We're on your side, sorry about not communicating with you earlier. Our base in your area was attacked around two weeks ago, and all radio communications went down there. We just finished repairing the radio tower at the base this morning. What's the status of the city bunker?"

"We're fine, the enemy still doesn't know our location. What happened at the base?"

The door to the communications room opened. "Papa, what's going on?"

"Maki please hold on a second" Mako whispered. "Sorry, could you continue?"

"A surprise attack took the base and communications out. It had been very rainy and there was some fog moving in, the base's radar and other equipment had been malfunctioning all day and the people there were trying to fix it. I was told that eventually the base had been surrounded in fog and then enemies came from nowhere and attacked the base. There weren't very many survivors sadly. What's the status of the city nearby? Our scouts had spotted an enemy force moving in the area but with communications down we weren't able to contact you."

"We handled it, the city is fine for now"

"That's good. Could we speak to some of the people who dealt with it then? We'd like to ask them some questions"

"They-" Mako was quickly interrupted by Maki who responded "There was a modified human with them who controlled some sort of bird robots. There was also a large centipede like robot that had a beam cannon on its back. They were attempting to destroy the city"

"I'm not aware of the enemy having any robots like that, we'll need to add that to our database. What about the modified human? What happened to it?"

Before Maki could respond anymore her father spoke up, "she's dead"

Maki was upset hearing that. She thought the girl was still alive in hospital, and that she would have been told about the girl's status if anything changed.

"Good. By the way, where exactly is the bunker located? We only know the general location of your bunker, and it would be good to know the exact location if the bunker comes under attack. It would also be good for us to know where lots of our important scientists are"

"Sorry I can't tell you that. If the enemy was to listen in to our communications somehow then saying anything risks telling them where we are, and it would be very bad if they knew where so many of our scientists were"

"While true, it's also dangerous for us not to know"

"This argument has been done many times before so we're not doing it again. You can look in one of your files if you need a reminder of the agreement between our scientists and doctors and your generals about the need for this location to be secret"

Finishing his sentence, Mako disconnected them and turned the communication device off.

"Shouldn't that be on to listen for communications?" Maki asked.

"It's fine, one of our radio operators will handle it later. Besides, we have another operator listening for communications so this radio doesn't need to be on"

"So, is that girl really dead?" Maki asked sadly.

"No, I lied about that. If HQ learned she was alive they would want her to be killed or handed over to them. From how you described her I thought it would be best for us to question her ourselves instead." Taking a breath, he continued "Anyways she hasn't woken up still, and there's no guarantee that she will survive".

"Oh. Would it be ok for me to check up on her?" Maki asked.

"Go ahead"


Maki opened the door to the room the girl was staying in. Maki was expecting to see her unconscious still, but was shocked to see the girl sitting up in bed looking very confused. The girl noticed Maki come in and turned to look at her.

"Umm hello. Have you seen Umi or Honoka?" The girl asked nervously.

"Sorry, I don't know who those people are" Maki responded, which caused the girl to look even more confused.

"Oh. Where am I? I don't recognise here."

"You are currently in hospital after getting badly injured" Maki stated. "I would recommend trying to get as much rest as you can as you just woke up after being unconscious for eight days. You're still on life support and I don't know when it will be fine to remove it yet"

"Are Honoka and Umi ok then?" the girl asked, "Are they in hospital too?"

"Sorry but I've really never heard of them before, and I don't know if they're ok either. What's your name?" Maki asked.

"My name is Kotori Minami"

"Were you controlling those birds then Kotori?" Maki asked, curious to what they were.

"Birds? Oh, you mean my bits, don't you?" Kotori said. "I control them – aah" suddenly holding her head, Kotori continued "Sorry, my head hurts"

Maki leaned forward and helped Kotori lay down, adjusted her pillow to make her more comfortable. When she looked at Kotori again, Maki noticed Kotori had the same look from when she first met her, like she was dead inside.

"Where am I right now?" Kotori asked again.

"I told you, you're in hospital–" Maki was interrupted as Kotori restated her question.

"I mean where exactly am I? Not just in a hospital"

Sighing, Maki decided to tell her what happened. "It looked like you were leading a small army to destroy a populated city having been told it was abandoned. Me and my friend worked together to destroy the army, and I confronted you. You refused to surrender and we fought, ending with me badly injuring you. I immediately applied first aid and brought you back here to recover"

"So that's why I recognised you. Why did you save me then?" Kotori asked.

"You remember anything?" Maki asked surprised.

"Seeing you and being asked about my bits made me remember parts of what happened" Kotori responded. "I can no longer feel my bits either. I guessed that you must have saved me then as you were the only other person I remember being there". Turning her head to look at Maki, she asked "So why did you save a failure like me?"

"I'm a medic, so it's my job to save people. Even if the world is full of killing, I don't want to kill people. Even if I must kill the people piloting those machines, I'm not going to be happy about it. But if it means protecting the people I care about then I will. I'm not going to kill people just to kill them like others though. Seeing how you were young like me and could still be saved, I couldn't just leave you to die. So please don't do anything that's going to force the people here to kill you"

Kotori looked thoughtful for a couple of seconds before talking. "Could you get me some water please? I'm feeling thirsty" she said sadly.

"Umm sure. That should be fine" Maki said before getting up to leave. Exiting the room, she walked several steps before stopping, having a bad feeling about leaving Kotori. Quickly going back, she opened the door only to see life support tubes wrapped around Kotori's neck with her pulling them tighter. Seeing an anesthetic on the counter, Maki grabbed it and then rushed to Kotori, injecting her with the needle while trying to hold her down to prevent her from choking herself. After Kotori stopped moving, Maki pushed a button to call some nurses over. When they arrived she explained what happened to them, before leaving as she was no longer needed.

Why would she do that? Maki thought while upset. I had told her not to do anything stupid.

While going towards her room to calm down, Hanayo and Rin spotted her and noticing tears, came over to see what was wrong.

"Maki, are you ok?" Hanayo asked.

"Yeah, you're not usually like this. Cheer up please." Rin said at the same time.

"That girl from before finally woke up. Her name is Kotori. We talked for a bit before she tried to kill herself" Maki managed to say between some sobs. "After everything I did to save her life, she decided it would be better just to kill herself anyways".

Unsure of what to say, Hanayo and Rin just hugged her until she stopped sobbing.

"Rin, the military contacted us again. You should ask papa or someone else for details. I just want to read alone in my room for a bit if that's ok"

"Sure, I was going to go help fix some of the damage done to the city, so see you later then". She said before leaving.

Hanayo gave Maki another quick hug. "It's ok. If you need to talk anymore, I'm always available to help".

After they left, Maki entered her room, grabbing a random book off her shelf before laying down in bed to read.


"Get back right now!" Rin shouted, firing her machine gun in front of the crowd of people to disperse them. "We're trying to fix these homes that got damaged, you can't just steal from the people who live here still!". Groaning in frustration, Rin looked around hoping that it was just her having difficulties so someone could help, but she could see it was bad for everyone else to.

A loud voice from behind Rin suddenly yelled "All civilians stay back or we will have to forcibly remove you". Looking behind her Rin saw another humanoid shaped machine with large speakers attached to its back. As she looked back she spotted some people trying to sneak around the soldiers while holding a box. She dashed in front of them and yelled "what part of GET BACK is so hard to understand for you?"

One of them quickly reached into the box and pulled out a bottle with a cloth stuck inside and lit it with a lighter in his pocket. Before he could throw it, Rin sprayed her machine gun at them killing them all within seconds. "They have molotovs!" she shouted right before the area erupted into chaos. A large group of people charged forward, throwing molotovs at the machines soldiers were piloting. The soldiers responded by firing their beams and bullets into the crowd while a speaker ordered the civilians to disperse immediately or be killed. More rioters appeared leaning out of windows and threw molotovs and explosives down at the soldiers and engineers.

Rin dashed ahead of some rioters who got through heading towards the engineers. Spotting her they threw their molotovs and grenades. Without thinking Rin fired her machine gun at them even as a grenade exploded right in front of her. As soon as they were dead she dashed over to the nearby engineers to see if they were ok. Several of them were injured and a few were killed from the explosives. She watched helplessly as one on fire rolled on the ground in a futile attempt to extinguish himself.

"Do we have any tear gas or anything non-lethal we can use?" she shouted at the engineers.

"No! I think the only gas we would have is mustard gas, but we wouldn't have brought that since we didn't expect something like this" an engineer called back.

Groaning to herself, Rin dashed towards the rest of the soldiers hoping to stop anyone else getting through. Once she arrived she could see that the chaos had stopped as quickly as it started. Bodies littered the ground with the street covered in red. Several people were still alive writhing in pain but no medics were around to help them.

"Did we suffer any casualties" she heard from her walkie talkie.

"I think some got through to the engineers"

"We lost some people on the east side, but no one got through"

Rin click a button on hers and reported "we lost a few engineers, I'm not sure how much though"

Placing it back on her hip she thought I'm not volunteering for this again.


Maki's reading was interrupted by a knock at her door. She quickly checked the clock beside her bed.

It's been a few hours already?

"Maki, could I come in please?" she heard her mother say from behind the door.

Laying back down she reluctantly called out "sure".

Her mother came in and stood beside her bed. "I've managed to calm Kotori down a bit, I don't think she'll do something similar soon. A few nurses are nearby just in case." When Maki didn't say anything she continued, "I know what happened is quite shocking to see. If you want to talk me and your father are available, same with your friends."

"It's fine, I was just really surprised and shocked." Maki responded without looking.

"If you're sure…" her mother said unconvinced that Maki was fine. "Your father was hoping you could go grab Rin from the city and check the military base out. From what we've heard Rin will probably want to do something else besides guarding the engineers there, and we've lost contact with that base again"

"Sure" Maki said as she got up and put her book away.

"If you see anything dangerous, come back right away and let us know. Don't get into a fight if you don't absolutely have to please" her mother called after her.

After Maki grabbed all her stuff she went out to meet Rin.

"Hey Rin, we're supposed to check the military base again. Contact with them was lost again. Also, what happened here?" she asked looking at the roads in confusion. Why are those red?

"There was a riot, and several of us died" Rin said. "Let's go now, I don't want to have to put up with the smell or sight of this any more"

They flew off together towards the base, keeping an eye out for any signed of danger along the way.

"Are the houses fixed at least?" Maki asked.

"Not yet, I was told it might be a couple more days to fix them. After that the engineers will head to the unoccupied parts of the city to fix the damage there. I don't think I'm going to help with this anymore though, what happened was sickening. At least while fighting a battle all the people are piloting machines so you can't see them die"

"Why are we all killing each other anyways? There's no point to any of this"

"Because the people in charge would rather see the world dead with them able to claim they won, instead of getting together and fixing this planet before it's completely dead"

"I think I overheard papa talking about fixing the world before. I have this feeling it was something I wasn't supposed to hear though"

"Fixing the world sounds nice at least".

"Rin, look over there". Maki said while pointing in front of them.

As they arrived at the base it was immediately clear why contact had been lost. The radio tower was in pieces, and smoke filled the air above the base. Maki spotted a fire in one corner of the base.

Must have been their munitions depot she thought. Maki was unable to see any people in the base. Were they ambushed again?

"Maki, look over there" Rin said as she pointed at some fog in the distance. "It looks like it's moving away from the base"

"Don't be silly, you're probably just imagining it" Maki said quickly. "Let's focus on finding out what happened here and finding any survivors"

Once they landed they both started looking around for any signs of survivors. "Hey Rin, I think I found something here" Maki called out. When Rin ran over she pointed at a hatch on the floor with some blood around it. Bracing themselves, they opened it and looked down. Inside was a ladder with some blood at the bottom. Rin started climbing down first followed by Maki. It's some kind of bunker down here, probably for waiting out any attacks Maki thought. Rin had already made it to the only door in the room and pulled her machine gun out. Waiting for Maki to signal she's ready, she knocked on the door and called out "is anyone alive in there?".

"Who's there?" A voice called out.

"We're from Nishikino bunker, coming to investigate what happened" Rin responded.

"Bunker City Thirty Seven A" Maki said giving Rin an annoyed look. "Use the official name when talking to military personal from outside our bunker" she whispered.

"Sorry" Rin whispered back.

"Come in. Are any of you a medic?" Someone said as they entered.

"I am" Maki said. "Also, please lower your weapon, it's making me uncomfortable".

Around them was seven people covered in blankets, with another five laying on mattresses injured. Only three people were not injured.

"What happened?" Maki asked.

"Fog had moved in so we were on alert after what happened last time. Once again, enemy machines appeared and started tearing the base to pieces. The first thing they did was knock the radio tower out and EMP the base." One of the uninjured soldiers said.

"Right". Turning to Rin, Maki said "Rin, go back and grab an ambulance carrier along with a couple of medics to pick these soldiers up. I'll stay here and try to help prevent any more people from dying."

Nodding at her, Rin ran out to do as she was told.

"Sorry, but could you go out to check for more enemy's please? There's still one out there I think." The medic asked.

"There really isn't, me and Rin already looked". Maki responded annoyed.

"Why do you think we had weapons pointed at the door? It's because someone is still out there."

"Fine, if it will help you all calm down I'll go up and check. Make sure no one else dies then" she said. I'm a medic, I should be healing people. Not going up just so I can come back and tell them "told you so".

Once outside she started checking each building again. There's really no one here, they're just imagining things.

Opening a door to another building she immediately stopped, staring at the person inside. They were a short, black haired girl with twin tails. Quickly pointing her weapon at the girl she demanded "who are you?".

"ughh". Turning to look at Maki the girl said "I'm someone you probably don't want to mess with, so please stop pointing that at me. Let's face it, I don't want to fight right now, and you don't want to fight, so let's just both agree to pretend I wasn't here and I'll be on my way soon enough"

Red eyes? That's an unusual eye colour. Shaking the thought out of her head she asked "Did you attack here?"

"I didn't kill anyone if that's what you're wondering" she stated bluntly. "I was just here to supervise some things and then take care of some business here, I'll be leaving soon enough"

"And what business would you have here?" Maki asked suspiciously.

"None of your business. What are you even doing here?" She said. "Also, PLEASE LOWER YOUR WEAPON NOW" she shouted surprising Maki. "I know about those people down below over there" she said pointing towards the building with the bunker, "I know they're injured and I could have killed them at any time if I felt like it, but I left them alone". Deciding the girl wasn't going to do anything to her, Maki lowered her weapon.

"Aha, this looks good" The girl said as she held some papers.

"And those are?" Maki asked while trying to get a better look.

"As I said, none of your business. And this one looks promising… oh." Looking at Maki now the girl asked "Maki Nishikino is it?"

"Ueeh, how did you know my name" Maki asked surprised.

"Only person with hair that looks like a tomato that I know of" she said as she showed Maki one of the things she was holding. Looking at it Maki saw a picture of herself, her name, and some other things written. "Judging by your face I'm guessing you didn't know your own military was keeping a record of you here?"

"No" Maki said. Suddenly remembering the girl was an enemy she thought Oh no, how much information on me do they have? Fire came from the girls hand and the paper started burning, getting dropped onto the ground.

Maki stared at it before asking "you can control fire?"

The girl stared at Maki for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "Are you an idiot or something?"

"How am I an idiot? You just lit…" she stopped as the girl showed her a lighter. "oh". Just staring at the report burning for a moment she asked "why burn that? You could probably have gotten more information on me"

"Because I'm nice and thoughtful and decided you wouldn't like that. Besides, I didn't come here for that. You should be thanking me for doing you a favour and not bringing this back to my base" The girl said smugly.

"Right… thanks"

"What are you doing here still, admiring my cuteness?"

Cheeks flushing red Maki stammered out "don't be silly". Although she is kind of cute Maki thought before realising what she was thinking. Taking a second to regain her composure she asked "since you know my name, what's yours?"

"Well aren't we greedy? Well I suppose telling you wouldn't hurt. I'm Nico and no, I'm not telling you my last name" she said amused. "Shouldn't you be helping those injured people below? You are a medic according to those papers I burnt" she asked.

"Right, although I should also make sure you don't do anything"

"I was never here remember?" Nico asked. "We did agree on that didn't we? That's why we're not at each others throats right now, besides you being unwilling to hurt someone as cute as me". Maki rolled her eyes at the comment. "Anyways, you do owe me something for not hurting those people, telling you my name, and burning that document" Nico said with a playful look.

"What?"

"Yeah, I think a kiss on the cheek should do" Nico said while tapping her cheek. "With all the staring at me you've been doing, as well as not wanting to leave me, this is probably a reward for you".

"I-I'm not doing that" Maki stammered as her cheeks flushed redder.

Sighing Nico said "aww, am I not good enough for you?" while pouting.

She's a good actor, I'll give her that Maki thought. "T-That's not it" she said, looking away embarrassed. How did it come to this? Still, it's better than trying to kill each other.

Fine then Nico said walking over to Maki. Planting a kiss on Maki's cheek she bounced back. "ueeh, what was that for?" Maki said even more embarrassed now.

"My reward for earlier. Anyways, why don't you go check on those engineer's tomato? And remember, I was never here".

"I'm not a tomato" Maki called back as she left. Touching her cheek she thought really, how embarrassing. Spotting the ambulance carrier landed, she ran over.

"Maki? Why are you up here? I thought you would be down with the injured." Rin said confused.

"The people thought there was somebody else still here and sent be to go check…", remembering what Nico said she continued "but no one was here. They were just imagining it"

"Oh. Well you looked a bit flustered running over here. Are you that out of shape or-" Rin smiled.

"that's enough Rin" Maki warned.

Seeing some medics carrying injured people on stretchers Maki ran over to help. Once everyone was on the carrier they started back to the bunker. Maki looked out quickly to check if Nico was following or watching them but didn't see anything. I guess she's not willing to risk being seen.

"There were lewd things, weren't there?"

"RIN!"


Once the ambulance carrier landed inside, several doctors came over to take the injured to the hospital.

"The people on board didn't see where the bunker is right?" Mako asked a medic.

"No, we made sure of that"

"Good". Walking over to Maki he called out "Don't worry, we've got this. If you could check on Kotori for me that would be helpful. If you can get any useful information from her that would be nice, but don't push it because I'm not sure how stable she is yet".

Nodding at him, Maki went off to the hospital room with Kotori inside. As she entered the room she saw Kotori still on life support.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Maki asked.

"I've been better. I'm still the same failure as always" Kotori said sadly.

"Everyone messes up. You're not a failure" Maki said trying to cheer her up.

"Thanks for the thought but I really am, even others said I was, that's why they avoided giving me important jobs".

This isn't helping, I'll just change the topic to something else. "Well that's enough of that subject, how about we talk about what we like doing?" Maki suggested hopefully.

"Sure, what do you like doing" Kotori asked, brightening up at the change of topic.

"I like reading, playing the piano, listening to music" Maki said.

"I'd like to hear you play the piano sometime, I've never heard anyone play it before" Kotori said. "What I like doing is sewing. I really like making cute outfits".

"Maybe you could try sewing some stuff, or fixing clothes around here. It would give you something to do" Maki said. Hopefully she'll also be able to live a more normal life here then, instead of having to be a prisoner.

Suddenly looking unwell Kotori held her stomach. She lay down as tears ran down her face.

"Are you ok?" Maki asked, worried about her sudden reaction.

"Everything hurts so much. My bits were destroyed but they had become a part of me, so now it really hurts and feels like something's missing" Kotori managed to saw between her sobs.

Maki quickly grabbed some pain medicine and something to help Kotori sleep. "Here, drink this" she said. Kotori accepted her offer and was asleep within minutes. I think I know something that might help her Maki thought as she left to go find something. Looking around the hospital she found a storage room where some stuffed animals and toys for kids in hospital were. Maki grabbed as many as she could and brought them back to Kotori's room, setting them down beside the sleeping girl.

It may not replace her bits but maybe these can help her with some of her pain. Pretending they're her bits might help. At the very least she can hug them. Maki pulled the blanket so it would cover Kotori. Maybe Kotori could teach me and Hanayo to sew and we can all make some stuffed animals together Maki thought, a smile forming on her face.


"Hey, do you know where Maki and Rin are right now?" Mako his wife as he gave her a quick kiss.

"Umm, I think they're currently with Hanayo and Kotori making some stuffed animals" she said.

"Thanks. I need to contact some people right now, so could you make sure no one interrupts me please?" he said.

"Sure."

Sighing as he walked in to the room, he checked to make sure he was the only one in there.

Good.

Making sure to lock the door before turning the radio on, he started going through different channels and encryption frequencies.

"Hello, Mako here. Is anyone there right now?"

Several seconds passed by before a response. "Hello. I'm not sure who you are?"

"I'm part of the secret project. I was told you had been informed of the basic idea and was hoping you would be interested."

There was some more silence and then "I'm not sure what you're talking about, what secret project?"

"Ah, right" he said. "The sky is ruined".

"Ok. You are who you say you are then. Sorry, we were told not to talk about anything without the password in case."

"It's fine. Were you guys interested then?" he asked.

"Sounds good to me. You're one of the people in charge of this I think?"

"That would be correct. If you know anyone else who would be helpful, please see if you can convince them to join us. I'll let the others know about your decision and the people on your side will give you our communication frequencies and encryption keys."

"Sure. I really hope this works and we can fix the world. If we're caught then we will be in a lot of danger you know, so we're taking a big risk here."

"Thank you very much for agreeing to help." Mako said. "If there are any problems and your safety is threatened, I'll make sure you guys are brought over here."

"You're taking a big risk yourself, aren't you?" the other person asked.

"Yes. Anyways, I should get going now."

Before turning communication off he heard "Wait!"

"What?" Mako asked curiously.

"One of the others here, they just let me know that they think they know one modified human who might be willing to join our cause."

"A modified human… That's great." Mako said.

"We'll try talking to her and let the contacts here know what she says."

"Sure. Tell them to let me know what's going on with her as soon as possible please."

"Sounds good. Anyways, we have to go now. Bye." The person said before disconnecting.

Mako smiled to himself. Things are going good so far. Hopefully this modified human is willing to join our cause.


Notes:

Sorry this took so long. I've written an outline now to help me organise ideas so hopefully that helps. I might change things in it which would delay things again. I don't know how long the next chapter will take, so sorry in advance.

My detailed outline for including Nico, 110 words. My higher-level outline just says "Nico happens to be there also". Entire scene with Nico, ~850 words. I guess I managed to fulfil my goal of sticking more Nico moments in. Writing Nico and Maki is quite fun.

As always, comments/reviews are appreciated. Let me know what I'm doing wrong, what I could do better, suggestions, or anything else you can think of.

Also, happy (late) birthday Nico. Nico Nico Nii